by DoctorHepa
“You’re the best!” Donut said, and the eagle preened.
“I’m starting to think you actually had this all planned out when you picked that class,” I whispered as we walked from the store.
“Of course I did,” Donut said. “I knew we’d be selling everything on this floor, so I picked that merchant class. Miss Beatrice didn’t call me Princess Money Bags for nothing.”
“I’m pretty sure it was ‘Princess Money Pit.’ She called you that because we spent more on you than we did for our rent.”
“Well obviously that investment paid off, didn’t it Carl?”
“Think of general stores like 7-11s,” Mordecai said, interrupting. We now had a pool of about 50,000 gold, which apparently was pretty good. “They’re convenience stores. You buy from them as a last resort. They’re fine to sell stuff to because they’ll take almost anything, but even with your discounts, you’ll pay three times as much for the basics. So if you want potions, go to a potion store. You want spells, go to a spell store. If you can find one. Also, some guilds will sell stuff, too.”
This particular town didn’t have a spell store. There were dozens and dozens of places, but most of it was useless to us. We needed magical gear and items to increase Donut’s Constitution, but there just wasn’t any of that here. There were several potion stores, however, and Mordecai made me purchase 10K gold worth of alchemical supplies.
We bought one additional item. We spent 15,000 gold on a magical pet carrier for Mongo. Neither Donut nor Mongo were too hot on the idea, but Mordecai pointed out that her pet wasn’t properly resting at night. It appeared the dinosaur now felt obligated to protect us in our sleep, despite being in a safe room, and it was negatively affecting his stats. The carrier would allow him to rest. Plus, Mordecai added, no pets were allowed in the Desperado Club. They had a “play room” for familiars, but their safety wasn’t guaranteed. Donut finally relented.
The device was actually kind of cool. It was a square, brown box the size of a Rubik’s Cube. It had a symbol etched on the outside that looked like a fire hydrant. When Donut pulled it from her inventory, she could activate it, and Mongo would get zapped in there. He’d sleep and regain his strength while he was in the cube. She could call him back out with a press of the button.
“Later, you may get a mount that works in a similar fashion,” Mordecai said. “When merchants sell mounts, they usually come with a rudimentary pet carrier.”
“What’s the difference between a mount and a pet?” I asked.
“Some pets can be both, but plain mounts tend to have low life points and little to no personality,” Mordecai said. “You can have as many mounts as you want, though they’re usually expensive. And you have to feed them. Mounts don’t level or grow stronger.”
After we shopped, Mordecai walked us to the edge of town. “No quests. No elites. Kill mobs. When you find a boss, make sure it’s a neighborhood boss and nothing bigger. Keep in touch. Get back here before dark.”
“Easy,” Donut said.
* * *
And believe it or not, the next several hours were relatively uneventful. We found a cluster of these creatures that looked like a cross between floating squids and umbrellas. They had a psionic attack, but because of our high charisma, we weren’t affected. These were called Brain Boilers, and they were upgraded versions of the Mind Horrors we’d briefly faced on the second floor. They moved slowly and were easy to kill. A few of them dropped ink pouches as loot, which Mordecai got pretty excited about.
I alternated between punching and kicking attacks. Mostly punching with these guys. Mongo easily ripped them to shreds, and we had to hold him back as he’d become a serious experience hog.
Donut alternated between her Magic Missile attacks, her Second Chance, and her Clockwork Triplicate. I would also cast Fear, but the spell wasn’t too effective against them.
But I did manage to level my Iron Punch skill up to ten with the gauntlet bonus. The tenth level of the skill added something called the Breadbasket effect. Basically if I landed a solid blow to the mob, there was a 10% chance to stun it for several seconds.
The neighborhood boss fight could’ve gone south pretty quickly, but thanks to Donut’s new Acute Ears skill, we knew it was lurking around the corner when we approached. The monster was called the Dispenser, and it looked like a giant manta ray thing. It blended in with the entire side of a building and tried to drop on us as we passed. But we’d been ready, and Donut attacked with two reanimated Brain Boilers, and once it’d peeled itself off the wall, we had a clockwork Mongo run at it with a stick of dynamite in each hand. The whole fight lasted less than a minute.
The real Mongo screamed in dismay at the suicide attack, but Donut managed to keep the pet under control. We added that move to our playbook. We called it, “The Boomy Boy.”
As long as I could keep my supply of dynamite healthy, it was a super-effective anti-boss attack.
By the end of the fight, Donut had leveled up to 16. I was still at 18, but teetering on 19. Mongo hit level 11. We’d all nudged a few of our skills up as well.
As we turned back toward the town, I spied a single white dot of an NPC and a large group of X’s on the map one block over. This was just outside of town, right past the wall. As I watched, the white dot disappeared into town and then returned a few moments later. A new X appeared next to the NPC. Just on the other side of the fence, within the city limits, stood a pair of guards. So whatever this was, it couldn’t be something too untoward.
“Let’s go check that out,” I said.
“It smells really bad,” said Donut. Mongo grunted in agreement. We turned down the street and edged our way toward the NPC.
“Oh, Carl,” Donut said as we got closer. “Did you know she would be here?”
“No,” I said. “But the system knew we’d be coming this way.”
It was GumGum the orc. I watched as the large woman easily tossed a dead body onto a pile of other bodies in the middle of the street. This was a mix of humans, orcs, elves, and dwarves. There was about fifteen of them, all piled on top of one another.
I attempted to examine one of the dead NPCs, but the system helpfully grouped them all together for me.
Pile of Dead Hookers.
Well isn’t this awkward?
Sure enough, all of the corpses appeared to be female. All of them wore provocative clothing. They were all contorted and bent in odd ways, as if the manner of death was by a giant picking them up and twisting them like dish rags. One of them, a dwarf, didn’t appear to have a head at all. The whole pile oozed with mud-like gore.
“So,” I said, stepping forward. GumGum startled and whirled on me. “This isn’t something you see every day.”
“Adventurer,” she said. She wiped her hand on her shirt. It left a smear of brown. “I was hoping to catch you on your return today. I spied your party leaving this morning.”
“And you thought to greet us with a mountain of rotting prostitutes?” Donut asked. “I’m not sure where you’re from, but the cultured amongst us no longer use corpses as icebreakers. Next time maybe just bring Carl a milkshake. He likes milkshakes.”
“These are the women I’ve found today,” GumGum said. “There is something killing them, and we don’t know what it is. And we don’t know who these women are, either. They’re not from this town. We find them in the alleys, scattered throughout every morning. Most of their blood is removed from their bodies.” She wiped her hand on her pants. “But not all the blood. We pile them up outside the gates, and the Street Urchins take care of them. But we find new ones every day. Sometimes it’s just one or two, but sometimes, like last night, it’s a lot.” GumGum took a deep breath, and I realized she was holding back tears. “It’s not right. The Skyfowl don’t care as long we move the bodies out. The guards don’t work at night. But these were people, and they’re just dead. And I don’t know why. Can you help me?”
“Uh oh,” Donut said just before the notification came.<
br />
New Quest. The Sex Workers Who Fell From the Heavens.
Prostitutes. Escorts. Street Walkers. Ladies of the Night.
It doesn’t matter how you describe them because these chicks are dead. Very dead. And every morning, several more of them appear scattered throughout the village. Nobody knows who they are or where they come from. Find out why.
Reward: You will receive a Silver Quest Box.
“Silver?” Donut said. “The last quest was a gold box.”
“The last one involved a couple elites and a city boss. This one must be easier,” I said. I leaned in and examined one of the dead women. This one was a human. She had distinctive wounds on her shoulders. I’d almost missed it because her entire body had been twisted so her pelvis faced the wrong way. The orc next to her held the same injuries. All of the pale bodies seemed to glow in the dying light of the day.
“Well, Mordecai is going to be upset,” Donut said.
“We’ll see what we can do,” I said to GumGum before we turned back into town. After we passed through the gates, I thought of what Mordecai had said the previous evening. You can’t save them all.
“Don’t worry,” I said to Donut once GumGum was out of earshot. “We had a good day today. I’m not going to let it get derailed by a quest.”
“That’s what you said last time,” said Donut.
A note from DoctorHepa
It's everybody's favorite day of the week! Monday! Woohoo, Monday! Seriously, though, I want to thank everyone who has stuck with me through this story. We still got a loooong way to go, and I hope you continue on the journey with me.
Unless, of course, Donut and Carl both die in a horrible accident, and we instead follow the goat lady for the rest of the story. I like goats. I might be getting a pair of Nigerian dwarf goats.
* * *
Chapter 62
Entering The Desperado Club
The first room of the loud, garish Desperado Club was open to the general public. It was packed.
The exterior of the building looked straight out of 1920’s New York City. It was all square, concrete columns with a semi-circle relief punctuated by triangular, sun-like rays, similar to the construction style of the top of the Empire State Building. The club took up an entire street and rose a good six stories into the air. The glowing, neon knife logo spun above that.
“This place seems much too big for this town,” I said as we stepped past a bored-looking rock monster bouncer and into the main room.
“There are two main clubs in the Over City,” Mordecai said. “The Desperado Club and Club Vanquisher. Generally, once you have access to one, you’re not allowed in the other. This one is easier to get into. The Vanquisher Club is more like a country club where old clerics sit on leather chairs and smoke pipes and occasionally tell racist jokes. This place is like your Las Vegas Strip mixed in with Mardi Gras and the discos of the 1970’s.”
“This sounds much better,” Donut said. She did that little neck bob before she jumped up on my shoulder, and I knew she was overly excited.
“Oh believe me, it is,” Mordecai said.
“I want to try one of Miss Beatrice’s favorite drinks. Either a Sex on the Beach or a Long Island Iced Tea. Or that one. What is it, Carl? She always says it’s her Kryptonite.”
“A Dirty Shirley,” I said.
“Yeah, I want to try that one.”
“Cats don’t drink cocktails,” I said.
“Cats don’t shoot lasers from their eyes, either, but here we are, Carl. Mama needs a night off.”
We followed Mordecai as we walked through the busy pub. Multiple NPCs and actual crawlers littered the room. It felt as if all eyes were on us. The crawlers watched us. The NPCs stared at Mordecai.
“Mongo would love this place,” Donut said wistfully from her perch on my shoulder. The dinosaur had screamed furiously as Donut pulled out the pet carrier.
“He probably would,” I said. I eyed one of the burly, rock-skinned bouncers standing in the corner. “But we aren’t going to find out.”
“This first room is exclusive to this town,” Mordecai said. “Any local can come here. You do not need a pass. Crawlers who’ve yet to obtain access can come here and pick up quests to win themselves a tattoo.”
We approached a red, glittering door at the back of the room. We pushed our way through and found ourselves in a small vestibule leading to another door. Sitting in a chair in front of this second door was a lizard-faced monster. This was the same race of creature as that crawler we’d seen on the recap show, the one with the shotgun.
Clarabelle – Crocodilian. Level 40.
Employee of the Desperado Club.
This is a Non-Combatant NPC.
Crocodilians are an intelligent, thick-skinned, semi-aquatic race. They tend not to be the sharpest tools in the shed, but they’re certainly more intelligent than their smaller cousins, the Troglodytes. They are inclined to work as muscle or enforcers for both legitimate and not-so-legitimate organizations throughout the universe.
“Hello, Mordecai,” Clarabelle said. “You know that disguise can’t fool me.”
“It’s not a disguise when I have no control over it,” Mordecai said drily. Then a huge smile spread across his face. He leaned forward and kissed the bouncer on both cheeks. “What’s it like in there?”
“Dead. But there’s more people in there than there were last night.” The bouncer looked at me and then Donut in turn. “I’ve seen you two on the recap show. Where’s your pet?”
“Mongo?” Donut asked. “You know about Mongo? He’d be so excited to meet a fan! He’s in a pet carrier. Do you want me to take him out?”
“No. Do not let him out. I’m glad you have a carrier. The pet room is currently out of order. We don’t want another incident like last night. I see you two both have a pass. The bar and dance floor are open. The casino isn’t ready yet, but you can probably find a card game if you look hard enough. We’ll open it up in a few days.”
“Thanks, Clarabelle,” Mordecai said, patting her on the shoulder. He tossed her a gold coin. We went through the door.
“Holy shit,” I said a moment later, gazing upon the room. I had to shout to be heard. “This is considered ‘dead?’”
There had to be 500 people of all shapes and sizes in this first room. Pounding dubstep filled the nightclub. Seizure-inducing lights flashed. The floor shook. Smoke rose from all corners.
Mordecai made a circle in the air with his finger, drawing a halo over himself. A translucent bubble formed over his head, making him look like he was wearing Zev’s spacesuit helmet. He motioned for me to do the same. I twirled my finger in the air, and a circle formed, covering my head. Donut also repeated the gesture, waving her paw in the air.
The moment the bubble formed, about 95% of the pounding music filtered out. I could still hear it, but it was now background noise. A new sound emerged. I looked about, and a small portion of the people in the club had the bubbles on their head. I could hear them talking amongst themselves, like we were in a moderately-busy cafe.
“There are a few types of privacy bubbles,” Mordecai said. “This is the most basic. You can talk to anyone in the room without having to shout. Most clubs give access to this or similar spells.”
“Weird,” I said. I poked at the bubble with my finger, and it popped. The pounding music returned, startling me. I quickly reformed it.
“So this is the main room of the Desperado Club,” Mordecai said. Several rooms led off to different areas. Most of these rooms were labeled with floating, neon signs, all in that same 1920’s, speakeasy-style font. The whole place gave off a retro-futuristic, Blade Runner vibe. Of the 500 people filling the dance floor, almost all of them were NPCs. I did see a few bewildered-looking crawlers wandering about. My map also showed the distinctive white dot with a cross, indicating a few elites trawled the dance floor.
“This room,” Mordecai continued, “exists on a different plane as the outside of the club. It’s
the same thing as my guildhall. The moment you come into the members-only area, you are in the same room as everyone in all the club locations throughout the entire level. So these Crawlers you see come from all corners of the Over City. But when you leave, you’ll come out where you came in. You can not use the club as a fast travel location. Usually.” We approached a booth. The four, elven NPCs sitting at the table jumped up. They popped their bubbles and moved to the dance floor, allowing us to sit down.
“Most of these NPCs are bots,” Mordecai said. “The club will always appear as if it’s full of people, but that’s just an illusion. If it’s a young, buff or beautiful, half-naked creature it’s likely a bot. They’re not even real NPCs. You can dance with them. You can even bang them if you have the gold. But they can’t hold more than a rudimentary conversation, and they don’t exist outside the club. The moment a real NPC or Crawler enters through the door, one of the bots disappears, and vice versa.”
“Weird,” I repeated, looking about. I counted about ten crawlers and three elites. Each of the three elites were engaged in conversation with crawlers. I felt my hackles rise at that.
Donut jumped to stand on the table. “How did you get in here so easily,” she said. “Do you also have a tattoo?”
Mordecai nodded. “I had a pass early on. They know me here now.”
A blue-skinned woman NPC in a privacy bubble came to stand over the table. She didn’t have a name or level floating over her. It just said, Waitress. “Drinks tonight?”
“I want a Dirty Shirley,” Donut said. “And you have to put it in a bowl.”
“Certainly, your majesty,” the waitress said.
“Do you have earth alcohol?” I asked.
“Absolutely, hun. What can I get you?”
“Bring me a bottle of bourbon.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “That can either be a ten gold request or a 1,000 gold one.”
“Let’s keep it around 50.”
She nodded. My eyes caught the haze of smoke filling the large room. It flashed in the light. It didn’t smell right, but I felt a familiar tug in my chest. “Wait, do you sell cigarettes here?”